


Werewolves Don't Go to Summer Camp

by firstlovelatespring



Category: American Vandal (TV)
Genre: Camp Miniwaka, M/M, Party Games, Post-Season/Series 02, Truth or Dare, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 04:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17277347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstlovelatespring/pseuds/firstlovelatespring
Summary: There's a new director at Camp Miniwaka, and Sam thinks he might be something more than just human.





	Werewolves Don't Go to Summer Camp

Summer has been pretty quiet. Peter’s mostly just been putting the finishing touches on season two, emailing back and forth with Netflix about title sequences and computer graphics and how much shit is too much shit. It’s not quite bubbled over yet, but Peter can feel the restlessness inside him growing. He loves editing, but what Peter really misses is investigating poop crimes with Sam. Or any crimes with Sam at all. It’s like the world is full of mysteries, and he’s tingling with some sort of Spidey sense like he should be investigating, but with Sam away at Camp Miniwaka, all Peter can do is watch Tom Holland and Zendaya on his laptop screen.

That is, until he gets a call from Sam. It’s not like he wasn’t going to hear from Sam for a whole eight weeks; now that he’s a CIT, he’s allowed to have his phone. They text, but Sam never calls. It must be important. Peter answers on the first ring.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Okay, dude?” Sam says, voice hushed. “I have to— Promise you won’t laugh at me.”

“I promise, sure, what is it?” Peter braces for embarrassing camp photos, or falling into the lake, or even a Pat Micklewaite hookup.

“You know how there’s a new camp director?” Sam doesn’t wait for Peter to answer. “I think… I didn’t believe it at first, either, but some serious supernatural shit is going on here.”

“Supernatural? Like, what, did you see a UFO or something? Because I would totally believe that, the government is hiding so much—”

“Like he’s a fucking werewolf!” Sam hisses.

Peter waits for Sam to add something a little more, you know, _sane_ , but he doesn’t. “Did you say the new director of the camp is a werewolf?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I know I said I wouldn’t laugh at you,” Peter says, laughing, “but are you sure?”

“No, I’m not sure, but I don’t want to risk getting mauled to death! There’s a full moon next week and I’m, like, scared for the lives of two hundred innocent children, including this innocent child. Me.” Sam is still speaking in a low voice, but he sounds so earnestly afraid.

Peter sighs. “Okay, why do you think he’s a werewolf?”

“He’s always— He has these— I can’t do this over the phone. You have to come up here,” Sam says.

Peter is nowhere near convinced. But just about anything sounds more interesting than sitting here holed up in his room for the rest of the summer without Sam. The next morning, he calls up Camp Miniwaka to see if they have a place open in their final session.

*

Peter’s never been to sleepaway camp before. Camp Miniwaka seems nice enough, teenage guys who mime giving a hand job at him every time he walks by the docks aside. On the first day, Sam gets out of afternoon kayaking to help Peter unpack and, more importantly, to bring him up to speed re: lycanthropic activities.

“So, the new camp director,” Peter says, putting his suitcase down on the bottom bunk he’s claimed.

“Mr. Jenkins,” Sam supplies, sitting on the floor. “Two days ago, I heard weird noises coming from behind cabin six. I thought maybe one of the younger kids was crying or something, so I went out to check, but when I got closer, it wasn’t crying at all.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “It was _howling_. Mr. Jenkins was straight up howling at the moon. And,” he says, holding out his phone, “look at his beard.”

“He’s kinda hot,” Peter says, taking the phone from Sam to get a closer look. “He looks like Gary Cole.”

“Who the fuck is that?” Sam says.

“He’s an actor.”

Sam smiles fondly. “Not everyone has all of IMDB in their head, dude.”

“He’s the guy from— Never mind. Very werewolf-y,” Peter agrees, handing Sam back his phone. He’s still not convinced. Some mild howling, and a beard? It’s not remotely enough to make him suspend belief in science and reality. But he’s already here, at camp, with Sam. This ten minutes in his company has probably been more exciting than the rest of his summer combined, so he’s gonna stay.

Finished unpacking, Peter sits on the floor next to Sam. “Have you told anyone else about this?”

“Just Gabi, and she’s very on board. That reminds me, I told her we’d meet her after evening activity. We need to talk strategy.”

“For what?” Peter says. “Are we gonna stake him through the heart?”

“That’s vampires,” Sam corrects, like it’s grounded in actual science. “Duh.”

*

Evening activity tonight is a campfire.

“They do this on the first night of every session,” Randall tells Peter as they walk over, “so the new kids can learn all the camp songs.”

And, apparently, all the ghost stories. After the younger kids have been herded to bed, Mr. Jenkins invites everyone to sit up close to the fire pit. The wood has burned down to glowing embers, and it’s almost dark. The woods are silent and still, and the shadows dance on Mr. Jenkins’ face. It’s pretty creepy. Peter stares at him, starting to think Sam might be onto something.

A mosquito buzzes in his ear. He slaps at the bug, and snaps back to reality. Mr. Jenkins isn’t a werewolf, because werewolves aren’t real.

“Legend has it,” Christa Carlyle begins, clearly relishing the privilege of being a storyteller, “the Camp Miniwaka cook used to live in a little shack in the woods. He was an ugly man, and all the campers used to, very unjustly, make fun of him. They would throw pebbles on his roof at night, and say all sorts of mean things about his appearance and his food. Then, one day, a little boy went missing. The camp looked everywhere for him, but he was lost. No one heard from him, ever again. People said he must have gotten lost hiking in the woods. Or that he had been eaten by a wolf.”

Sam nudges Peter with his elbow. “Did you hear that?” he whispers. “Eaten by a wolf?”

“Yeah, a wolf,” Peter whispers back. “Not a werewolf.”

“People investigating supernatural shit always listen to the local legends. This goes on the board.”

“What are you talking about? We don’t have a board.”

“If we did, this would go on it. I would put it on it.”

Something howls in the distance, and Peter flinches. Sam snickers at him.

“It got you too!” Peter says, and then turns back around in time to see Mr. Jenkins… sniff the air?

“Sounds like a coyote,” he says, voice booming across the circle and interrupting Christa, who has reached the point in her story where enters a cannibal chef. “Sorry to leave you all on a cliffhanger, but you can finish up another time for us, Christa. We’d best head back to camp.”

Gabi catches up to them on the trail back. “Hey, Peter.”

“Hey. Are you seriously believing this whole werewolf thing?”

Gabi looks at him like he just asked if she believes in gravity. She turns to Sam. “Guess what Jenkins was eating at dinner.”

“Spaghetti and mystery-meatballs, like the rest of us?” Peter says.

“There’s a staff kitchen,” Sam explains. “For when counselors are off.”

“Yeah, I had off for dinner too, so I went to make a grilled cheese, and he was sitting there, eating a huge steak. I think he was eating it with his hands, too, until I got there and he broke out the silverware.”

Gabi is literally two years into a physics degree at Pomona. It’s beyond Peter how she can be buying into this. “Okay, so, he was eating a steak with his hands. A little weird, I guess.”

“It was practically raw,” Gabi adds, and Peter thinks she really buried the lede here. “And it was, like, bloody. Even as a vegetarian I know that meat has juices or whatever, but it really looked like blood.”

“Definitely weird. But not weird enough to go and shoot him with a silver bullet.”

“Actually, dude?” Sam says. “I was reading up last night, we just have to find some wolfsbane and get him to eat it on the full moon.”

“Which is on Friday night.”

“Yeah,” Gabi says. “I'm leading a hike on Thursday, so we should be able to pick some in the woods then. You guys better sign up.”

When the activity sheet goes up, Sam does. Peter writes his name on the next line. The evidence seems circumstantial at best—men have beards, and Mr. Jenkins could have a perfectly good reason to be eating nearly-raw, bloody (probably just juicy) steak—but if Sam’s going, so is he.

*

The next morning, Peter is made to take the swim test. He tries to tell the counselors that he’s eighteen, and knows how to swim, and isn’t signed up for or even particularly interested in any water activities at all, but it doesn’t work. He shivers in his beach towel and swim trunks next to some eight year olds and gets on line for the damn swim test.

Peter advances near the front of the line, where Mr. Jenkins is standing shirtless with a whistle hanging around his neck. It’s not quite his turn to dive in yet, but when Jenkins blows the whistle, Peter almost falls in the pool. A red polyester cord isn’t the only thing around the camp director’s neck. There’s also two dog tags.

“You’re up!” Jenkins tells him.

Peter wades into the icy water and swims the length of the pool. Dog tags wouldn’t normally give him such pause. He would assume military, but coupled with the beard, the steak, the howling, the huge amount of chest hair now on display? Peter’s starting to get why Sam called him here in the first place.

He gets out of the pool and wraps himself in a towel. The sun is out now, but he takes a look at Jenkins and shivers.

*

At lunch, Peter brings Sam and Gabi up to speed on the dog tags and chest hair.

“That’s definitely suspicious,” Gabi agrees.

Sam nods. “Totally. And, I found something else. Jenkins had me go into his office to get the dodgeballs during first activity, so naturally I did some investigating.”

“Naturally,” Peter says.

“Yeah, naturally,” Sam says. “And I shit you not, he had the entire Twilight series on his desk. Including the extra one with the green apple on the front.”

“ _Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined_ ,” Gabi says. Sam laughs at her. “What? Like you didn’t have a poster of Taylor Lautner in your bedroom when you were thirteen?”

“You got me there, and also my point exactly: Who even cares about Twilight anymore other than for the hot werewolves?”

“No one,” Peter answers. He was staunchly Team Edward, but he’s not about to bring that up now. He can read the room.

“Exactly,” Sam says. “And in twenty eighteen? You’d have to be a hot werewolf yourself to care.”

Peter barely eats any of his tuna casserole, and not just because it’s tuna casserole. He’s nervous about the hike, even though he knows the most dangerous thing on the trail is poison ivy.

But everything goes fine. Gabi points out a patch of purple flowers, and he and Sam are able to slip away and fill a plastic baggie with wolfsbane. They catch up to the rest of the group, and Peter hands Gabi the bag, bowing his head in mock deference. “Our lives are in your hands,” he says.

Gabi accepts it solemnly. “I won’t let you down.”

*

That night, Sam drags Peter with him and a bunch of other CITs to hang out after evening activity. It was capture the flag in the woods, so everyone is still sporting colored face paint and an ungodly number of mosquito bites. They sit on the floor of a little gazebo the camp has near the docks and talk. It’s nice, less alienating than he expected. Peter’s been in school with everyone since forever, but they’ve also been coming to Camp Miniwaka ever summer for years, and he doesn’t have that shared experience. But Peter’s found that something about senior year breaks down all high school norms. There’s something about knowing they’re all going their separate ways in a few weeks that allows a sense of fondness to settle between them, like this night already exists in memory, even though it hasn’t happened yet. Everyone is nostalgic for the present.

It’s Emily Hershey who suggests they play truth or dare. No one’s drinking, but they’re all a little more reckless than usual, a little more bold. Playing fast and loose with emotions and confessions and secrets. Peter feels it doubly: it’s the end of high school, and they’re _probably_ not gonna get eaten by a werewolf tomorrow night, but a grizzly death at the hands of a supernatural creature isn’t completely off the table.

On his turn, Peter picks truth. Sam is leaning on him like he sometimes does, his whole side pressed flush against Peter’s, and he doesn’t want to get up.

“Okay,” Randall says, steepling his hands like a movie villain. “Which American Apparel catalog is the best? For, you know.” He mimes jerking off.

“Fuck off,” Peter says, blushing in the dark.

“You have to answer,” Randall says. “Unless you want one of my dares.” He does a whole thing with his eyebrows, and they all laugh. Peter’s heard the story a dozen times of how last year, Randall dared Allie Krauss to throw her underwear on the top of the flagpole, and she actually did it.

“Fine, uh. Fall twenty fifteen.” Peter hates that he has such a definitive and quick answer to this. “It was the sustainable edition,” he adds, feeling more than a little ridiculous.

“I bet it was,” Randall says, accepting a high five from Phil Huang.

Peter laughs along with everyone else. It’s still embarrassing; of course it is, but it was a long time ago. Never mind what he does or doesn’t get up to now, joking about American Apparel catalogs with his friends feels like talking with his cousins about the Winnie the Pooh costume he was practically sewn into as a child. Ancient history, courtesy of high school nostalgia magic.

Phil chooses truth next, and Peter asks him exactly how he managed to contract mono their sophomore year. Payback’s a bitch.

Then, Phil asks Emily, “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” she answers gamely.

Phil considers for a moment. “Alright... I dare you to jump in the lake.”

“Ugh, it’s so fucking cold at night,” Emily complains.

Madison elbows her fondly. “Shouldn’t’ve picked dare, I guess.”

Emily grins and stands up, taking off her sweatshirt. “Here I go,” she says, laughing. Madison, Phil, and Randall follow her to the dock, but Peter and Sam stay in the gazebo and watch from afar. Sam is still draped over his shoulder.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks Sam.

“Getting mauled by a werewolf about this time tomorrow night,” Sam answers matter-of-factly, sitting up so he can face Peter. “You?”

“Just that I’m glad I came here,” he says. “Even if we do end up getting mauled by a werewolf.”

“It’d be a pretty baller way to go.”

“Yeah. And I already made it big in the dicks and shit documentary game, so I can die, no problem.” Never mind that he still hasn’t had his first kiss. That seems like a requisite thought, here at summer camp in the middle of a game of truth or dare. Alone with his best friend and the stars.

“Nothing else to do before leaving this earth?”

Peter can think of one thing. And if there were any time to do it, it’s now. High on the taste of almost-adulthood and the supernatural. Peter closes his eyes and leans in. Sam meets him halfway.

Kissing Sam is kind of like following him to Camp Miniwaka in search of a werewolf. He doesn’t know if it’s going anywhere, if it even makes logical sense to do, and Peter finds that he doesn’t care. It’s enough to be here with Sam in the moment, making out on the floor of the gazebo or compiling evidence about lycanthropy or doing absolutely anything at all.

Someone wolf whistles. Peter pulls away from Sam to see Randall, Phil, Madison, and a dripping wet Emily standing in the entrance to the gazebo.

“Hey, guys,” Sam says, fixing his hair. “How was the water?”

“Fucking freezing,” Emily answers, sitting back down next to Peter.

They go back to playing the game like nothing happened. It’s exactly the same as before, except Emily is shivering under her wet hair and Sam has an arm around Peter’s shoulder.

It’s curfew before they know it, and they make their way back to their respective cabins. Peter gets into bed. The lights are turned off, but he can’t sleep. He tosses and turns for what feels like hours, listening for a howl in the night but hearing only the rustling of his bedsheets.

*

“So what happens now?” Peter asks at breakfast the next morning. Gabi successfully put the wolfsbane in Jenkins’ water bottle in the staff fridge, and none of them heard about any maulings last night, lycanthropic or otherwise.

“Nothing happens,” Gabi says, taking a bite of French toast.

“We never found out if he was a werewolf or not. The wolfsbane could’ve just done nothing,” Peter says.

Gabi shrugs. “I guess it would be cool to know for sure, but I’m just glad everyone is okay.”

“You could say you’re over the moon about it,” Sam says, smirking.

“I could, but I won’t.”

“You’re not curious?” he asks Gabi.

“Of course I’m curious, but that’s not the point,” she says, like she can’t believe she even has to explain this to Peter. “We saved the camp from a werewolf, or I gave Mr. Jenkins some herbally infused water, but either way, we did what we thought was right.”

Peter thinks that Gabi has a point. He loves to find the truth, solve the mystery, but sometimes, that’s impossible to do. You never find out what could have been, what will be, or even what is. You just do your best with what you have.

Sam squeezes his hand under the table, and Peter thinks, yeah. He’ll take things as they come.

**Author's Note:**

> This was heavily inspired by the [Bailey School Kids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey_School_Kids) novel of the same name, one of my childhood favorites. I loved playing in this vaguely supernatural sandbox, and would totally consider adapting some other Bailey School books into cases for Peter and Sam in the future...
> 
> Also, according to Wikipedia, wolfsbane is pretty poisonous IRL. Stay safe, kids.


End file.
